Category: Silica

You won’t see it in a press release, but yesterday OSHA announced another 30 day delay in full enforcement of the Silica standard for many employers. Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Tom Galassi sent a memo to Regional Administrators yesterday outlining the policy that will take effect on September 23: During the first 30 days of enforcement,…

While the new headlines are all about Hurricanes, health care, North Korea and tax “reform,” chickens around the country are getting more and more nervous as the foxes quietly move into the government agencies that are supposed to be protecting them. Over at the Labor Department, Justin Miller in the American Prospect writes about how…

The House of Representatives continued to wage its never-ending war on working people yesterday when the House Rules Committee voted to add 58 mostly anti-worker amendments to an already un-labor-friendly FY 2018 Labor-HHS Appropriations budget bill. That bill, you may remember, slashed the OSHA and MSHA enforcement budgets and eliminated the Susan Harwood Training Grant…

The New York Times takes another look at Obama administration worker protections that are being “revisited” in the early months of the Trump administration. Most of these stories — the Administration’s attempt to roll back the Beryllium rule’s coverage of construction and maritime industries, the delay in enforcement of the silica standard and proposed elimination…

Representatives of the construction industry, as well as general industry have petitioned Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to reopen the silica standard, workplace safeguards that would save over 600 lives and prevent more than 900 new cases of silicosis each year. This means that for every day implementation of the standard is delayed, almost two workers will die…

Making Recess Fun Again: One more week left of Congressional recess. Anyone talked to their Senator or Representative about not cutting OSHA’s budget or rolling back protections? If not, here is a schedule of Congressional Town Hall Meetings in your areas. Get out there, or give them a call. Let me know how it went…

The fact that most OSHA chemical standards are old, outdated and don’t protect workers very well is something that government, labor and industry can generally agree on. There is less agreement, however, on what needs to be done about that problem. But it’s a question that needs to be addressed, as an estimated 50,000 workers…

OSHA announced this afternoon that it was delaying enforcement of its silica standard in the construction industry for 90 days. Originally scheduled to begin June 23, 2017, enforcement will now begin Sept. 23, 2017. Employers are still required to comply with the standard, but so that the agency can “conduct additional outreach and provide educational…

Alexander Acosta, the President’s nominee for Secretary of Labor testified today before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. If you’re interested, you can watch the entire hearing here, although that would be two and a half hours you will never get back. I’m going to review the parts of the hearing that addressed workplace…